


A Crash Course in Not Underestimating Your Enemy

by halcyon_riparian



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, But not only angst, Cyborg!Brian, Gen, Ghost!Daithi, Hurt/Comfort, Monster Hunters, Spooky!Lads, Vampire!Dan, Werewolf!Sean, au by the lovely alittlesliceofcucumber, just Kevin, there's a bit of, thrown in for good measure, we swing wildly between angst and light-heartedness here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyon_riparian/pseuds/halcyon_riparian
Summary: A simple reconnaissance mission takes a turn, leaving the lads scrambling to pick up the pieces and fighting to stay one step ahead of an adversary who knows way too much.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 60
Collections: Spooky!Lads AU





	1. Which Part of Stealth Did You Not Understand?

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the Spooky!Lads AU by alittlesliceofcucumber on Tumblr, and my brain wouldn't let me rest until it made it out into the world. 
> 
> Please[ check out the AU ](https://alittlesliceofcucumber.tumblr.com/tagged/spooky!lads)if you haven't already, but the only thing you need to know is that the lads are supernatural creatures: Dan is a vampire, Seán is a werewolf, Brian is a cyborg, Daithi is a ghost, and Kevin is literally just Kevin with a lighter. 
> 
> I've taken a lot of liberties with Brian's enhancements and abilities and at the same time I've not actually thought it through that much at all, so please maintain your suspension of disbelief.
> 
> I've got the next few chapters either written or drafted already, but how long this will be depends entirely on where my brain decides to go!

The street was a quiet one; a few turns from the main road, people seldom passed through even in the daytime and those that did always had somewhere else to be. At night, the tall grey buildings on either side left the narrow alleyway shrouded in shadows, a softly flickering lamppost the only source of light. Even then, the three figures silently creeping along the wall were barely indistinguishable from the rough, dark grey concrete. The featureless building was imposing, a fact that benefited not only those occupying it, but also suspicious characters snooping around; no matter what, few people were likely to pay any attention to the building or its inhabitants.

A large wolf with rugged fur led the way, followed closely by two other men. When they were just a few metres away from a metal door – the only way into the building from this side – they hunkered down behind a dumpster, carefully staying out of sight of the lazily swivelling camera mounted above the entrance. A red laser eye leaned out from behind the corner just enough to bring the door into view. Brian scanned the area, strings of data popping up in his vision – electronic locking mechanism, but no biometric security; a camera, outdated and grainy, connected to a network with a frankly pathetic firewall; a single infrared motion sensor placed high by the door, easy to duck under; the flick-spark-swoosh of a lighter –

“ _Kevin!_ ” Brian hissed as he turned back to the other man, crouched with his back against the wall and face illuminated for a second at a time as he lit and extinguished a lighter over and over. “Which part of _stealth_ did you not understand?!”

Seán growled lowly and swatted Kevin’s hand lightly with a massive paw, message clear even with lack of words.

“But I’m _bored!_ Plus, it’s not like the camera can see us behind here,” Kevin whined, head falling back to hit the wall. A slight rustling could be heard as the wolf seemed to shrink in on itself, shape gradually shifting into that of a man.

“Kevin, I don’t know how to explain to you that _fire_ makes it easier to _see_ in the _dark_. Which we definitely don’t want when _we_ are the ones _hiding in it_ ,” Seán whispered, voice tinged with exasperation.

“I told you guys we should have left him at the mansion. He’s going to get us all caught,” Brian grumbled.

There was little truth to his words. Earlier that evening the group gathered to prepare for the reconnaissance mission, pointedly avoiding the topic of Kevin until the very end. With the majority insisting that he stay behind, that he would be a liability, and Kevin loudly protesting, claiming the rest were just trying to exclude him from their fun plans, the ensuing argument was short-lived but loud. The truth that none of the other four cared to give voice to was that they much preferred Kevin safely at the mansion, where he couldn’t be caught up in any of the danger associated with breaking into a hunter hideout. Although Kevin was strange enough to mesh seamlessly with the supernatural group, they were painfully aware of his very human weaknesses. The argument was quickly won by Kevin threatening to set fire to all the curtains in retaliation if left to his own devices, and the others had no choice but to acquiesce.

Kevin was thankfully interrupted before he could respond to the barb by the small black shape of a bat swooping down from the rooftop above and morphing into a human just before it hit the ground.

“Can you guys be any louder? I could hear you from the rooftops,” Dan hissed. “We’re lucky the security here is abysmal, or we would’ve had guards on our arses already.”

“What did you see, Dan? How many guards?” Brian interjected swiftly before the others could start arguing again.

“The other door literally just has the one. He’s not even patrolling, just sitting around reading a book.”

“Anything else?”

“I think he was reading _Anna Karenina_ , too. He didn’t look too bright, but I respect his taste in literature –“

“ _Dan._ ”

“Right. There’s an entrance on the roof, but no guards except for one guy who came out for a smoke. I think there’s a break room or something on the second floor – I saw a couple guys through the window, but they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I didn’t see anyone else.”

“That’s because there is no one else,” a disembodied voice added. The other men would all vehemently deny jumping at the ghostly form suddenly poking his upper body out of the wall, just as Daithi would deny meticulously timing his entrance for maximum effect. “Dude, I don’t even know what these guys think they’re doin’. There’s literally just the four guys Dan saw. This is a joke.”

“Please wait until we’re gone to give them pointers on how to improve. Daithi, did you find a server room?” Brian asked.

They had heard rumours of the building they were currently crouched outside having recently been taken over by an upstart gang of hunters, reportedly relying heavily on tech and computers rather than any physical skill or traditional weapons. As such, the mantle of leader had naturally fallen on Brian as their resident tech expert.

“There’s a control room or something in the west corner, on the third floor. Lots of computers and stuff.”

“Okay, good. What else? Did you see any server arrays? What’s their setup like?”

“…They had, like, at least five screens in there. The screensavers were just pictures of cats.”

Brian sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Forget I asked. Alright, listen up. These guys may be incredibly dumb, but they’re not complete idiots. The cameras are connected to a wireless network so I can shut them down easy, but whatever data they’ve got is stored offline. I can’t access it remotely; we’re going to have to get to that control room so I can get into their systems and find out what they know. Now remember, we want to get in and out without anybody knowing we’re here – Kevin, that means no burning anything down. Everyone got it?” Dan, Seán and Daithi all nodded in confirmation while Kevin pouted mulishly. “Okay, be ready to move as soon as I disable that camera.”

After a moment, the camera in question froze halfway through its panning and the small red light in the corner went out. The group, Brian leading them, swiftly sprang up from their hiding place and made their way to the door. Brian pressed a metal hand to the keypad on the wall, maintaining contact for no more than a second or two before it flashed green and the door clicked open. Once on the inside, they wasted no time in following Daithi as he floated up the stairs, leading them along the path to the control room. Seán kept an ear open for any approaching footsteps, but they encountered no obstacles along their path. Soon enough Daithi led them to a door at the end of a long hallway. Brian cautiously tried the doorknob, only to find it unlocked. He shared a quick glance with the others – _were these guys even trying?_ – before making his way in.

The room itself was unimpressive. Several screens were mounted haphazardly above a rickety table by the far wall, each plastered with a rolling gallery of cats. Brian rolled his eyes as Seán and Kevin cooed over a picture of kittens, electing to ignore their antics and instead inspect the computers while Dan was distracted by a bookshelf piled with knick-knacks. Tapping a keyboard woke the computers up (much to Seán and Kevin’s dismay) and he was faced with a login screen.

“Honestly, I half expected them to not even have password protection. It’ll be quicker for me to just interface with the computer directly rather than try to brute force it,” he said after a moment of deliberation. He took a seat in the rolling chair in front of the desk and reached for one of the loose cables hanging from the computer.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, man? I’m not sure you should be going around plugging yourself in to strange computers…” Daithi asked, hovering anxiously at Brian’s shoulder. “What if you get a virus or something?”

Brian scoffed. “These guys aren’t exactly Anonymous. The worst that can happen is that I get cats floating around my brain for a few days.” With that, he felt around at the back of his neck for the port hidden under his hair and plugged the cord in. His spine stiffened with a slight jolt and a flicker of his robot eye as the cable clicked into place. Kevin and Seán had joined Daithi to stand in front of the monitors and watched as the login screen was obscured by windows of code moving too quickly to read, popping up and closing just as fast. In no time at all, the login screen disappeared to reveal a cluttered desktop as documents sprang up, displaying page after page of scanned texts.

“Ha, got it!” Brian smirked, then went silent for a moment as pages kept popping up, one after another. “Looks like our hunters aren’t completely incompetent. They’ve got a substantial amount of information here, and most of it even seems legit.”

Dan came over to join them from where he had been poking at the contents of the bookshelf. “I recognize some of those illustrations,” he said, leaning in for a closer inspection of the pages on the screens. ”These are some really rare books – that one looks like a bestiary from the 1800s. How did they get their hands on these?”

Several moments passed in silence as the pages on the screen slowly went from mostly text to illustrations and diagrams of various beasts and monsters. The group gradually grew more and more tense as the images became more gruesome, depicting techniques for killing and dissecting any number of creatures. Seán couldn’t help the shiver that ran through him at the sight of a detailed drawing of werewolf anatomy – it was obvious that the artist had used a real specimen as a reference.

“Guys, this doesn’t feel right. Some of this stuff is fecking morbid, even for hunters,” he quietly admitted. The others said nothing; the mounting tension in the room spoke for itself.

Brian shook himself, tearing his gaze from the macabre images. “There’s got to be more than this; these guys wouldn’t set all of this up just to save scans of a bunch of old books,” he muttered, eyes flicking over to the window still scrolling through lines of code. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he mumbled to himself as he scoured the drive for anything of interest. “Is that – ha! They’ve got a hidden drive here too, the sneaky bastards. Pretty heavy encryption as well, they’ve gotta have something interesting on here…”

The others still stared at the screens, enraptured by the contents; Dan looked increasingly queasy, and Kevin was putting little effort into hiding his disgust. Daithi floated gently, face seemingly impassive – only those who knew him could tell that the calm façade hid a burning rage. Seán was growing twitchier by the second, frequently glancing back at the doorway as if counting down the seconds until they could leave.

“This doesn’t add up,” Brian said, shocking them out of their reverie. “The encryption is way too sophisticated – definitely not something these guys could pull off. This isn’t the work of your average programmer.”

“Can you crack it?”

Brian spared Daithi an affronted glare at the question. “Of course I can crack it, what do you take me for? _Feck off, can I crack it…_ ” he muttered. Daithi, paragon of maturity, stuck his tongue out at the back of Brian’s head, making Kevin snort.

A minute passed, the room quiet save for the rapid-fire clacking of the keyboard.

“Sooo…” Daithi drawled, slowly floating closer to Brian, “have you cracked it yet?”

“ _Gah_ , just – give me a second, alright?!” Brian snapped, swatting at Daithi, while Kevin and Seán snickered in the background. “You guys don’t understand how impressive I’m being right now. Just… one… second… _got it_.”

The levity of the moment was quickly broken as the images on the screens were replaced by a multitude of new pictures – photographs this time, all monochromatic. Horror coursed through the veins of each of the men, icy and sharp, as the contents of the photographs registered. Splashed across the screens were pictures featuring each of them, except for Dan who never appeared in photos – even Daithi was faintly visible in a couple shots, clearer than he usually appeared on film. The photos were clearly taken from a distance and at several different occasions, the unwitting subjects completely unaware.

“What the fuck… have they been watching us?” Seán said on a shaky inhale. “How the hell have they been watching us without us even realizing?”

Dan squinted at a photo of a building, barely visible through a thicket of trees. “Is that – _is that my mansion?_ These guys know where I _live?_ ” he exclaimed, fear evident in his voice. “Lads, I think we need to leave. _Now_.”

The others nodded agreement frantically as Brian quickly went back to typing from where he had frozen in place. “I’m copying these to my memory; we need to know exactly how much they have on us –“

He was interrupted mid-sentence as every single screen suddenly flashed a solid red. All five of them froze at the sight of the two chilling words printed across the displays.

“ _Shit –_!” Brian exclaimed as he frantically scrabbled for the cord in his head, only to seize up with a tinny cry just short of reaching it.

“ _Brian!_ What – what’s going on?!” Daithi spoke with rising panic – just then, an alarm started blaring, prompting Seán and Kevin to cover their ears while Dan lunged forward to reach for Brian where he was frozen in the chair.

Brian’s staticky yell suddenly climbed in pitch as his laser eye flickered erratically. Then, completely without warning, the scream cut off as he went limp, eyes slipping closed.

“Shit, _Brian!_ ”

“Pull the cable out, _quickly!_ ” Daithi cried, as Dan did just that with a quick yank. Brian didn’t stir.

“Time to go, lads! We’ve got company!” Seán called out from where he was leaning out of the doorway, swiftly turning to cross the room to where Brian slumped in the chair, transforming back into a wolf on the way. Dan and Kevin quickly caught on, grabbing Brian’s arms to heave him onto Seán’s back. With Brian out of commission and Seán the only one strong enough to carry him out, they were suddenly woefully outmatched and keenly aware of it. Way beyond making it in and out unnoticed, the only goal now was to make it out at all.

“Hey, Kevin,” Daithi started, a ghostly echo in his voice, drawing the other man’s attention. “Remember how Brian told you not to burn anything down?”

Kevin said nothing – just responded with a shark-like grin, completely void of mirth. The expression sent shivers down Dan’s spine as he led the way out of the control room – that look on Kevin’s face did not bode well. Kevin was the last one in the room, wielding a lighter in each hand. As the smoke started to climb up the walls, he wasted no time in heading for the door. In the doorway, he paused and glanced behind him for a last look at the screens, warping under the heat of the steadily growing flames, and the two haunting words printed on them.

**_HELLO BRIAN_ ** _._


	2. You've Got Cats on the Brain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if the lads make it out of the burning building, they won't be out of the fire as the consequences of their misadventure start to make themselves known.

Getting out of the building proved to be a great deal more challenging than infiltrating it had been. The alarm had alerted not only the four guards already onsite, but had also summoned several more from where they had evidently been lurking somewhere nearby; within minutes, the once-empty hallways were crawling with them. Escaping had been an exercise in stealth, with both Daithi and Dan inconspicuously scouting ahead for a clear path while the other three snuck between closets and obscured corners, several times avoiding discovery by the skin of their teeth as they frantically ducked into doorways to hide from guards rushing past. Kevin’s heart had felt seconds from bursting out of his chest throughout – as much as he found reckless pleasure in risky endeavours, the stakes were seldom this high. At that moment, their two strongest fighters were either incapacitated or otherwise occupied, and all of them were painfully aware that they couldn’t afford to get caught.

In the end, they had the guards to thank for making it out undetected. Despite whatever happened to Brian in the control room, their initial assessment of the guards as incompetent buffoons proved accurate, as the alarm and the steadily thickening smoke did nothing but send them into a frenzied panic that allowed the intruders to slip out unnoticed.

The drive back, once they finally made it out to their car, was tense. Seán was behind the wheel, adrenaline spiking at every fire engine and police car that streaked past, alarms blaring, toward the building rapidly being consumed by flames behind them. His jitteriness did nothing to calm Dan where he sat in the passenger seat, compulsively twisting around to either stare at the orange glow and the smoke billowing into the sky, or at Brian lying stretched out across the backseat where they had dragged him into the car, head resting in Kevin’s lap. Despite Kevin’s attempts at waking him with gentle taps to his cheek and fingers squeezing his flesh-and-blood hand, Brian remained completely slack and effectively dead to the world.

“What the hell happened back there?” Daithi was uncharacteristically subdued as he floated near the rear of the car. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

“Whoever built that system targeted Brian specifically. It’s like… like they _knew_ we’d be there. Jesus, was this all just a trap?” Dan spoke, voice tight with anxiety.

“Whoever’s behind this, we have to stay calm,” Seán ground out, knuckles white from gripping the wheel. “They want us to be rattled.”

“How are we supposed to be _calm_? Brian is _unconscious_ , possibly hurt, and we don’t even know why!” Daithi snapped.

“Yeah, and panicking isn’t going to help him!” Seán shot back.

“They’ve been watching us for weeks, they must’ve known we’d come looking for them. And we walked straight into it,” Dan muttered mostly to himself, eyes growing distant and thoughts spiralling at the implications.

“Dan, snap out of it! We have an absolute limit of one crisis at a time,” Seán said. He was aware of the harshness of his tone, but he was barely holding it together as it was – he couldn’t handle the others’ panic as well.

“ _Guys._ ”

Dan, Daithi and Seán all went quiet at Kevin’s outburst – the man rarely raised his voice or expressed anger, and the rare occurrence shocked the others into silence.

Kevin took a breath – far steadier than he felt inside – to calm himself. “None of this is helpful right now. We get Brian back to the mansion, wait for him to wake up – and he _will_ –“ he said with a glare at Daithi, who opened his mouth to interject, “and he’ll tell us what happened and who the hell it is we’re dealing with. Alright?”

The others remained silent. Although they were all aware that Kevin’s conviction was superficial at best, they allowed it to bolster their resolve nonetheless.

“The mansion might not be safe, since they know where it is,” Daithi spoke quietly after a moment, the reminder making Dan blanch. “We should go to Brian’s bunker – the paranoid bastard’s made it practically impossible to hack, and all his tools are there in case – in case he needs any repairs.”

Seán finally spoke with a sigh. “He’s right. We need to regroup and figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.”

The bunker was deep in the woods, requiring a walk through dense trees from where the road ended. Seán swiftly transformed again and together they dragged Brian’s motionless form out of the car and onto Seán’s back. Kevin walked alongside the wolf, hand resting on Brian’s shoulder to make sure he didn’t slide off. Dan, Seán, and Kevin had only been there a couple times and so they relied on Daithi to lead the way through the dark forest, and soon they could vaguely make out the entrance, well-hidden behind a cascade of ivy and moss.

The air inside tasted stale – it was obvious that Brian hadn’t been here for at least a couple of days, having spent most of his time at Dan’s mansion planning the mission – but the quiet whir of ventilation started as Dan flicked a light switch on the wall. Depositing Brian onto the spartan bed tucked in the corner, the group collectively collapsed into chairs just to breathe for a moment. With the frenzy of trying to get out of the building alive and their mounting concern for Brian, the gravity of the situation hadn’t had a chance to sink in; now that they were (relatively) safe, reality crashed down hard.

Several minutes passed in silence. Seán sat hunched over, head in his hands and clutching at his hair. Kevin sat on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him and head tipped back, gazing blankly at the ceiling, fingers the only point of nervous movement as he absentmindedly twirled a lighter between them. Dan was slumped over the table, eyes vacantly tracking Daithi where he floated near the ceiling. The inability to do anything was the worst – a short discussion in the car had brought them to the conclusion that while they were desperate to figure out what was wrong with Brian, none of them knew enough about his mechanics to attempt any repairs. Although Brian had enlisted each of the others at times for minor adjustments when there was no other choice – just the other day Seán had helped him tighten a loose wire by his shoulder blade where he couldn’t reach it – his deep-seated paranoia meant that he rarely revealed any intricate details about his inner workings. Daithi knew the most out of all of them, and even he had no idea where to even begin. And so, all four of them sat in anxious silence waiting for Brian to wake up.

Their grudging patience was rewarded when not too long later, a quiet groan was heard from the corner of the room. The others were jolted out of their stupor and looked over to see Brian twitching slightly as he gradually returned to consciousness, human eye slowly flickering open.

Dan was the first to jump up and rush to kneel at Brian’s side. “Brian! _Thank fuck…_ How are you feeling?”

He was met by Brian’s unfocused gaze as the latter stared at him for a moment, brow furrowed. The others, peering at Brian with concern from behind Dan, were disconcerted to see his robot eye completely dark and lacking its usual red glow.

“Dan? Lads? What… what happened?” Brian asked after a beat, voice hoarse and scratchy, eyes finally focusing on the worried faces staring down at him.

The four of them shared a quick look, before Dan turned back to Brian and spoke hesitantly. “We, uh, we don’t really know. We were at that computer, and you just screamed –“ Dan paused to take a shaky breath, “and then you passed out. I think we tripped some kind of alarm.”

“You scared us, dude,” Daithi spoke quietly, drawing Brian’s attention.

Brian let his head roll back on the bed to stare at the concrete ceiling above him. “Shit,” he exhaled.

“Are you okay? How are you feeling?” Dan asked again when it became evident that no other response was forthcoming.

“Yeah, what the hell happened to you, man?” Seán added, poorly-concealed concern obvious in his voice.

Brian struggled to sit upright, prompting the others to scramble to support him. Once seated on the edge of the bed, he took a couple stabilising breaths before answering in clipped tones. “The encrypted drive – it had a failsafe coded into it. When I cracked it... I don’t know how exactly, but it overloaded all my systems. I’d have to do a full diagnostic to know more.” He braced himself and stood up, only for his mechanical leg to buckle under him and send him stumbling to the floor with a bitten-off curse.

Seán reacted quickly enough to stop him from faceplanting into the concrete floor completely – with the way Brian’s metal arm hung limply at his side, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from making painful contact. The others rallied to drag him to a nearby chair, Brian wincing as he settled.

“ _Shit_ … alright, hand me that laptop over there. I’m not risking connecting myself to my main computers; god knows what was in that code.”

“I told you it was gonna give you a virus or something, man…” Daithi grumbled, earning him a sour glare.

Booting up the computer, Brian shakily reached back to plug a cord into the back of his neck, only to falter halfway, arm trembling from the strain, before offering the cord to Dan in a wordless request. Dan took it and only hesitated for a moment before gingerly plugging it into place, jerking his hand back as it sparked with a _pop_ of static.

A tense few seconds passed before the laptop screen came to life – and froze on a picture of a basket of kittens. All five of them stared mutely until Kevin snorted, prompting a sharp bark of laughter from Seán and snickering from Daithi.

“You’ve – you’ve literally got cats on the brain!” Daithi gasped out between giggles, sending Seán and Kevin into more peals of laughter as Dan fought to keep the smile from his face. Brian sighed in despair as he dropped his face into his palm.

“I am so fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the lovely response to the first chapter!! This little story has lived in my brain for so long it feels strange to have others read it too, but I'm so glad people are enjoying it.  
> My brain hasn't quite decided where it wants this to go yet, but I am working on the next few chapters as we speak so I hope to update at least every 2-3 days if not daily.


	3. I Am Never Doing That Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They try to figure out what's wrong with Brian, but the solution may be riskier than they were hoping for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: I imagine Brian as having a robotic left arm and right leg, as well as most of his upper torso and his eye, of course.

The night was gradually inching into the small hours, the sky taking on the lighter tinge of imminent sunrise – not that any of the men saw it, sequestered in the underground bunker as they were. Seán and Kevin had succumbed to exhaustion a while ago, and were taking a nap against the wall on a pile of blankets and cushions they had unrepentantly stolen from Brian’s bed, including some that Brian knew for a fact were not his. He strategically decided not to question where they came from. Dan surreptitiously snapped a photo of the two of them – sitting shoulder to shoulder with their legs stretched out, Seán’s head was tipped onto Kevin’s shoulder, with Kevin himself open-mouthed and drooling slightly into Seán’s hair. This was the kind of blackmail material he could threaten them with for years to come (and if he also added it to a secret photo album he’d compiled of the five of them, well – no one had to know).

At that moment Brian and Dan were the only ones still awake. While Daithi didn’t sleep like the rest of them, he occasionally went into a resting state and if any of the others had noticed that he tended to do so more often when he was particularly stressed, they didn’t mention it. Brian had been tapping away one-handedly at a keyboard for the better part of an hour, face intensely focused on the strings of data flitting past on the screen. Dan, having given up on trying to follow what Brian was doing, was slumped in a chair with a book.

As Brian muttered to himself for the third time in as many minutes, Dan finally broke the silence. “How’s it going there, Brian? Is there anything I can do?”

Brian kept staring at the screen, giving no indication of having heard the question. Just as Dan was about to repeat himself, he slumped back in the chair with a sigh. “I can’t find any trace of that code, and I’ve looked _everywhere_ ,” he said, dragging a hand over his face. “I didn’t want to do a full system scan but, I think I have to.”

“Ah. So… what does that mean?”

“I’ll be pretty much useless for a couple hours while it’s running. Once it gets to my voice box I won’t even be able to talk.”

“That sounds… unpleasant.”

“Mm. It doesn’t hurt or anything, it’s just incredibly boring.”

The pair sat silently for a moment, Brian staring dejectedly at the wall in front of him and Dan contemplating the book in his hands.

“I, uh – I mean, I could read to you? While it’s running? So you don’t get bored, I mean.”

Brian finally looked over at Dan, a hint of surprise on his face.

“That… that would actually be really nice. If you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It’s the least I can do.”

With that said, Brian leaned back into a comfortable position in his chair as Dan moved a bit closer, book in hand. Sending Dan a quick warning nod, Brian pressed a few keys in sequence before tipping his head back and letting his eyes fall closed as a bar captioned ‘ _System scan in progress – 0% complete. Warning: do not disconnect’_ popped up on the screen. Taking his cue, Dan cleared his throat softly and began to read.

2 hours, 13 minutes, and 43 seconds later, the progress bar ticked over from 99% to 100% and, with an obnoxious beep, announced the system scan complete. The sudden noise startled Seán awake, flailing as he tried to free himself from the tangle of blankets around him. A wayward hand smacked Kevin in the jaw, rudely jolting him from sleep as well. Hissed curses could be heard as the two tripped over each other in their struggle to get up, accomplishing little more than dragging each other down again. Dan and Brian stared at them from the other side of the room – they expected nothing less from Kevin, but Seán was _supposed_ to be an apex predator with superior physical ability.

“This is just embarrassing,” Daithi said from his vantage point near the ceiling, having woken up a while earlier.

“Should we help?” Dan asked tentatively.

Brian shook his head. “Nah, I wanna see how long it takes them.”

Seán finally scrambled to his feet, using Kevin as leverage and intently ignoring how his pushing made Kevin faceplant into a pillow with a muffled yelp. The latter dragged himself up just a moment later, a look of accomplished determination on his face as if he hadn’t just spend a good minute losing a battle to a pile of bedding.

No one spoke as all five of them stared at each other.

“How the _hell_ have you two survived this long?” Daithi asked incredulously, the first to break the silence. Kevin just grinned while Seán spluttered indignantly.

Desperate to stall the argument that was brewing, Dan quickly addressed Brian. “Well? Did the scan show anything?”

Brian finally dragged his eyes away from where he had been staring at Seán and Kevin’s antics with a contradictory mixture of amusement and disappointment. Turning to the laptop, he skimmed through the newly generated report as the others waited, tension palpable.

Brian’s sudden intake of breath and whispered curse as he went pale was not the reaction they were hoping for.

“What? What is it?” Seán demanded tersely, stepping closer.

“There _is_ a virus,” Brian said with a quick sideways glance at Daithi, daring him to say anything, “programmed to run when I start my systems. It, uh. Looks like it gives the hunters remote access to them. Me.”

For a heartbeat, everyone froze. No one breathed – until the room exploded into noise.

“What do you _mean_ remote access? Like they can _control_ you?”

“I fuckin’ _told_ you you’d get a virus, man…”

“Jesus, this just keeps getting worse –“

“Can you get rid of it?” Kevin asked, prompting the others to abandon their fretting and turn to Brian for an answer.

Brian grimaced as he answered. “Well, I… I do weekly system back-ups. I could restore everything to an earlier back-up without the virus,” Brian said, a hint of reluctance in his voice.

“Great! Let’s do that, then,” Daithi exclaimed.

“Brian, why does it feel like there’s something you’re not telling us?” Seán asked, eyes narrowing.

“It, uh. It would erase my memories, too. Everything from the past week.”

The others were shocked into silence at the admission. Brian fidgeted in his seat.

“What the hell, you self-sacrificing idiot! Were you even going to tell us, or just let it be a nice surprise?!” Daithi burst out. Brian, eyes fixed on the floor in front of him, said nothing.

Dan stepped toward Daithi, palms raised and placating. “That’s obviously not an ideal option. Is there anything else we can do?”

Brian brought a hand up to rub at his brow, feeling the heavy weight of four expectant gazes. “There is another way, but it’s… riskier than I’d like.”

“What is it?” Seán prompted.

The room was quiet for a moment as Brian seemed to weigh his options. Evidently making a decision, he spoke. “Resetting the processor core would purge irregular start-up routines without affecting memory. The problem is, there’s no way to do a programmed reset – you’d have to create a low-impedance current to short the circuit and trip the breaker manually, and the circuit needs a high enough voltage for that to work.” Finishing his explanation, he looked up to find four blank faces staring at him. He stared back for a beat, then sighed.

“Right. Basically, you put something metal between a positive node and a negative node – like the two ends of a battery, yeah? – which will make electricity flow through at a much higher rate than intended. A fuse will blow to protect the circuit from overheating, which will reset the processor. Yes?” He was met with four hesitant nods. “Great. The problem is, I’d have to power up my systems for that to work. And, well… that means the hunters could gain remote access.”

“So… how long would this take?” Seán asked, an intensely contemplative look on his face. “To reset the process-thing?”

“Only a few seconds at most, provided you manage to connect the two terminals.”

Seán nodded, as if coming to a conclusion. “Okay. So, I’ll hold down your arm in case the hunters try to control it, and we’ll finish it quickly before they get any ideas. Who’s going to do the circuit part?”

Dan and Kevin shared a glance before Kevin spoke. “My hands are too shaky for precision stuff like that. We need Seán to hold him down, and Daithi…” Kevin shot an apologetic look at the ghost, who shrugged. “Dan, I think it’s gotta be you.”

Dan took a shaky breath, then drew himself up, steeling himself. “Alright. Let’s do this. Brian?”

“Yeah. This will be easiest if I’m lying down – help me to that table? And roll that side table over, too.”

With some assistance, Brian hobbled over to the chrome-topped table on one side of the bunker. It was evident that it was the place he usually did repairs and maintenance, from the various tools and cables and mechanical instruments spread around it within easy reach. Dan eyed them with trepidation.

“Dude, the fact that you just, like, operate on yourself is weird as fuck.”

“Thank you, Daithi. Your commentary is useful as ever.”

Settling back onto the cool metal, Brian popped a panel on his left side by his sternum and handed Dan a black cable, a crocodile clip on one end and a needle-like metal probe on the other. “Once I power up my systems, this circuit here will light up. Do you see the two terminals on the side there?” Dan hummed in confirmation. “You can attach the clip to the negative one now, and once it’s powered up you touch the other end to the positive terminal. Don’t keep contact for longer than it takes to short it – it’ll overheat and I’d prefer not to melt today,” he said, ignoring the increasingly concerned glance his words elicited from Dan.

Seán hesitantly placed his hands on Brian’s metal arm where it was extended on the side table, one on the bicep and one halfway between palm and elbow. Leaning his weight down, he looked up and nodded tersely at Dan, who leaned closer to get a better view from where he stood opposite Seán, nearly knocking heads as Kevin did the same from his position by Brian’s head. Taking a deep breath to still his slightly shaking hands, he attached the clip before he could second-guess himself.

Taking his cue, Brian closed his eyes and activated his internal power. For a few seconds, nothing happened – Dan watched the circuit intently, waiting for it to light up and signal that it had sufficient power. Another few seconds passed before the light activated, and Dan hastily guided the probe toward the positive terminal. With just a couple centimetres to go, Brian choked out a breath as his left arm suddenly spasmed violently, causing his torso to jerk – and, with a slight tug on the cable, the clip snapped loose.

“ _Shit!_ The clip – !” Dan fumbled it in his hands as he tried to get a good grip on the tiny fastener.

Seán was wrenched forward as Brian’s arm tried to break free from his hold. “Dan, hurry up! They – they’re controlling his arm, I don’t know how long I can hold it,” he ground out, bearing all of his weight down onto the arm, desperately trying to keep it still.

“I’m trying! He’s moving too much, I can’t connect it –“

Brian slammed his head back onto the table with a choked off yell that quickly turned staticky and distorted.

“Guys, his eye!” Daithi warned, panic in his voice at the sight of Brian’s robotic eye charging its laser in the very familiar way it always did before he tried to zap something – Daithi had been on the receiving end of that too many times not to immediately recognize it.

Kevin hastily wrenched Brian’s head to the side, palms firmly placed on either temple, just in time for the laser to discharge into the far wall with another distorted cry from Brian, leaving a smoking scorch mark on the concrete. Kevin couldn’t help but stare mutely at the blackened spot – Brian rarely used his laser eye at full power, and the deadly potential it held was suddenly all too evident.

Dan, still desperately trying to reattach the clip, leaned his weight on one arm across Brian’s torso to try and minimize his thrashing. Kevin did the same with two hands firmly pressing his shoulders into the table, arms already shaking from the effort.

With Brian fractionally more still, Dan again tried to connect the clip once, twice, and – finally, with a triumphant cry, managed to fasten the cable. He wasted no time in jamming the metal point none-too-delicately into the other terminal, eliciting a loud whine from the circuit. An arc of white-hot electricity jumped between the two terminals, causing Dan to yelp and yank his hand back as the current burned his fingertips, dropping the metal probe. With a loud _pop_ , the circuit went dark. Brian’s head dropped back onto the table as he went still, metal arm suddenly powerless.

The four of them could do nothing but catch their breath in the deafening silence.

“Did it… did it work?” Seán asked, breathing heavily as he gradually let go of Brian’s arm.

“I… think so?” Daithi said, sounding just as exhausted. “How does he always end up unconscious?” he wondered, peering curiously at Brian’s slack face.

Dan, abruptly feeling unsteady on his legs, sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands as he tried to breathe through the panic only now kicking in. “I,” he started, as Kevin patted the top of his head in a comforting gesture, “am _never_ doing that again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a few extra days to write because I was obsessively trying to figure out a plausible way to make the computing and circuitry work. I've been staring at circuit boards and various electronics all week at work and I think it's showing. Would anyone else care? Probably not. Do I refuse to not at least have semi-realistic circuit theory? Absolutely. 
> 
> Thank you again to everyone who read and left kudos and lovely comments, it really makes my day to see others enjoying whatever this is my brain is spewing out!
> 
> Up next: we learn more about the elusive long-distance hunters...


	4. They Know Where We Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lads have managed to avert one crisis, but they should know better than to assume their troubles are over.

The wait for Brian to wake up this time around was significantly shorter. Barely a minute had passed before he stirred on the table, a slight whirring announcing his systems up and running. Dan, still on the floor, snapped his head up as the other three froze. This was the moment of truth – either they managed to get rid of the virus, or the hunters-as-Brian were about to attack. 

Brian blinked his eyes open, staring up at the ceiling for a moment, before pushing himself up to sitting. Hesitantly, he flexed his metal arm, opening and closing his fist a few times. Another tense moment passed before he finally looked at the others, a triumphant smile on his face. The tension in the room popped like a bubble, as they all breathed easy for what felt like the first time in days. 

“Oh thank god,” Dan breathed, falling back against the wall behind him. “ _Never_ make me do that again, do you hear me?”

“Ah, you did just fine,” Brian waved him off, before turning sombre. “I… didn’t hurt any of you, did I?” he asked, uncharacteristically timid as he dropped his gaze. 

“Oh no, we’re all fine. The only casualty was the wall,” Kevin said, nodding at the other end of the bunker. Brian looked up in confusion, first at Kevin, then over his shoulder at the blackened scorch mark.

“Huh.” Mildly horrified, he turned back. “In all honesty though, I’m, uh. I’m sorry, lads. None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t – well, I should’ve been more careful.”

“Don’t worry about it, dude. It’s hardly your fault that the hunters are cowardly dickheads who won’t even face us,” Daithi reassured him. Brian gave him a small but grateful smile. 

“Yeah, they’re playing dirty. It’s our move now, and once we figure out where they’re hiding…” Seán said, trailing off into ominous silence. The vindictive anger underlying his words was palpable, and Brian was slightly surprised to see the sentiment echoed in the others’ faces. 

Dan pushed himself up from the floor with a huff. “Right, so what’s our next step? Because I desperately need a nap.”

“And we should work on tracking down the hunters. Brian, d’you have any ideas?” Daithi asked.

Brian hummed in consideration. “Now that I’ve isolated the virus, I can go through it line by line. I might be able to back trace the hack to their IP address.”

“Great. Well, I’m going out for a run. I’ll go insane if I stay cooped up in here any longer,” Seán said, stretching out his arms and shoulders.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You do realize we’ve got hunters on our arses, right?”

“It’ll be fine, Dan. They know where the mansion is, not the bunker. I won’t go far,” Seán called over his shoulder as he bounded up the steps to the exit. 

The others stared after him silently for a second, before Daithi spoke. “I’ll go with him, keep an eye out,” he said, and with a quick parting nod, phased up through the ceiling. 

Dan sighed deeply and made his way to the bed after a quick ‘ _may I?_ ’ elicited nothing but a distracted wave from Brian, who was already engrossed in his computers. He collapsed bonelessly onto the mattress, acutely feeling the strain of the day in his body, and didn’t acknowledge Kevin trailing after him. Only when a pile of blankets was dropped on him did Dan startle and look up to notice Kevin diligently collecting every pillow and blanket strewn about the bunker, only to dump them on top of Dan. 

“Kevin – Kevin, why?” Dan asked, voice muffled under the bedding.

Kevin didn’t reply with so many words, electing instead to arrange the pillows and blankets to his liking, humming all the while. Dan flailed half-heartedly in protest before resigning himself to the treatment. When he finally ended up cocooned in a frankly excessive amount of blankets, he found himself too exhausted to question his predicament, and instead closed his eyes on Kevin’s self-satisfied grin and let himself drift off into sleep. 

Dusting off his hands with an approving nod, Kevin turned to join Brian at the desk where he was focusing intently on the laptop in front of him. Tapping his fingers on the table, Kevin poked at the various items scattered around him. A board covered in flashing buttons caught his interest, but elicited no response when he pressed some at random. Vaguely disappointed, he pulled out a lighter and flicked it on and off absent-mindedly as he continued fiddling with whatever he could reach. Growing bored, he found his attention drawn to the book Dan had set down on the table earlier. He flipped through the first few pages, eyes skimming over the words – before setting it down again and holding the lighter to one corner. He watched gleefully as the pages started to blacken and curl before the flame caught, quickly spreading across the cover. 

Without looking up from the screen, Brian hooked his ankle around an empty metal bin, dragging it out from under the desk. He calmly swept the book, rapidly growing flame and all, off the table and into the bin where it continued burning. Eyes still on the computer, he grabbed a Rubik’s cube and set it down in front of Kevin. He was inwardly relieved to see Kevin set down the lighter and become engrossed in the cube with a curious glint in his eyes and, having averted the crisis that is Kevin, gave his full attention back to the lines of code in front of him.

An hour later found Kevin slumped in his chair by the computer while Brian paced restlessly across the bunker. 

A flash of something in his peripheral vision made Kevin look up to see the screen flashing a warning. “Hey, Brian?” he called, getting only a distracted hum in response. “What does ‘Coordinates transmitted successfully’ mean?”

Brian whirled around. “ _What_ did you say?”

“It’s on the screen there. I didn’t touch it, I swear.”

Brian almost tripped over himself in his haste to get back to the computer only to freeze in his tracks, eyes wide as he read the text on the screen. 

Kevin stared at Brian with increasing concern as the latter seemed to stop breathing completely. 

“...Brian?” 

Abruptly spurred into movement, Brian flung himself into the chair and started frantically typing. “Shit. _Shit._ Kevin, wake Dan up, this is bad.”

His voice brooked no argument, and Kevin quickly crossed the room to the bed. Shaking Dan’s shoulder elicited a confused ‘ _mmfph?’_ from within the bundle of blankets as Kevin unearthed the sleepy vampire. Dan, still groggy from the all-too-short nap, allowed himself to be dragged upright by Kevin.

“Dan, wake up. Something’s happened.”

The words took a second to register, but once they did, they washed over Dan like a bucket of icy-cold water, catapulting him back to full alertness. “What? What’s going on?” he demanded, clambering over the mountain of pillows to stand up. 

“They know where we are.” 

Both Dan and Kevin jerked their eyes to Brian.

“What do you mean they know?” Dan asked warily. 

“The hunters, they know, they _fucking know,_ ” Brian snapped, standing up with enough force to send the chair rolling backwards across the floor as he turned to meet Dan’s eyes. “The virus – activating it sent them our coordinates,” he said, voice tight and fear writ large across his face. 

“So… they’ve had our exact location for over an hour?” Kevin asked, trying to quell the dread welling up inside of him. 

“Within a radius of a kilometre or so, but basically, yeah.”

“Guys,” Dan said quietly, eyes glued to the floor a few meters ahead of him, “how long have Seán and Daithi been gone?”

Kevin and Brian shared an apprehensive look. It had been over an hour since they had gone out, and while it wasn’t uncommon for Seán to spend hours in the forest, their absence this time felt foreboding. 

Before their collective panic could develop any further, Daithi suddenly made a reappearance, materializing as if from thin air. The hint of relief that flooded through them at the sight was quickly crushed by the chilling realization that Seán was not with him. 

“Guys!” Daithi called as he swiftly approached them, sounding out of breath – Dan spared a fraction of a second to wonder how a ghost could possibly be winded, but abandoned the thought as Daithi continued. “They – they took him! They got Seán!”

Brian recoiled at the news, turning away with his hands in his hair with a muttered curse. Dan grabbed the edge of the table for support and hung his head heavily, while Kevin, stock-still, just stared at Daithi. 

“What happened?” Dan asked without looking up.

“I don’t even know, he was running and suddenly he tripped or something, and grabbed his ears and – he just started yellin’, man!” Daithi said, movements frenetic and agitated. “And then a bunch of guys showed up, dressed in like, spy gear or something, and dragged him into the back of a van and just, just drove off!” 

Brian turned back to the others, a quiet _fuck_ murmured under his breath. 

“I tried to stop them, I swear, but the sun’s already gone up, and you _know_ it’s harder for me to become corporeal in the daytime,” Daithi kept going, voice pleading.

“I know. It’s not your fault, there wasn’t much you could’ve done,” Dan assuaged him, lifting his eyes to meet Daithi’s panicked gaze, Kevin nodding along in agreement. 

Daithi let out a shaky breath – even with Dan’s reassurance, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. “How did they find us, anyway?” 

“Well, about that,” Brian started, rubbing at the back of his head. “The code sent them our coordinates when it activated. If they hadn’t run into Seán, they probably would’ve found the bunker soon enough.”

“Fuck, dude…” 

“How do we track him down? Brian, did you manage to track the hunters through the code?” Kevin asked.

“Not yet, but… there may or may not be an easier way. Did Seán have his phone on him?” 

“I think I saw him use it outside, yeah,” Daithi replied.

An unintelligible mumble from Brian made the others lean closer. “What was that?” Dan asked.

Brian heaved a sigh, fidgeting awkwardly on the spot, cringing as he repeated himself. “I said, as long as Seán has his phone on him, I can track him. Or any of you, for that matter.”

The incredulous silence stretched on as the other three stared at him in disbelief. 

“Wait. Are you saying…” Kevin floundered as he tried to find the right words. “Did you put _trackers_ in our _phones?_ ” 

“Are you _serious_ , Brian?” Dan exclaimed.

“Look, alright – you feckers are constantly getting lost or kidnapped or _something_ , and I’m always the one who has to track you down!” Brian burst out, shoulders drawing up defensively. “Forgive me if I wanted to make it a bit easier!”

“Wow, dude. I’m disappointed in you.”

“Why are you upset anyway, Daithi? You can’t even carry your phone around, it’s not like it makes a difference to you. And now I can find Seán in all of thirty seconds, are you really gonna tell me it’s not useful?”

Dan considered this, and had to admit – albeit grudgingly – that it made locating Seán, and the hunters by extension, a much quicker process than it otherwise would’ve been. “Alright, fine. But we’re talking about this later,” he said, pointing an authoritative finger at Brian, who rolled his eyes as he grabbed a bag and began throwing things, laptop among them, into it.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Can you guys be mad at me _while_ we’re driving, or do you want to waste more time?”

Swinging his now-full backpack onto his shoulder, Brian turned back to the others. They all shared a glance – what had started as just reconnaissance had turned into a rescue operation, and they were more determined than ever.

One way or another, they were getting Seán back – and they were fully prepared to wreak havoc in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me when Daithi mentions the sun coming up: what time is it for them anyway?? What's the timeline here?? Is it plausible for the sun to be rising??
> 
> Also, poor Brian has spent probably a third of this fic so far unconscious. I didn't necessarily plan it that way, it just happened. 
> 
> Thank you again to all the lovely comments, it really makes my day to read your thoughts and reactions!
> 
> The way I've plotted out the story it should have 2 more chapters, unless I end up dragging it out into one more.


End file.
